Not a happy holiday at Starbucks, facing boycotts over Middle East war, unionization

abcnews.go.com:

It’s been a tough few weeks for Starbucks

Last weekend, Starbucks got a report that a New York store had been spray-painted with pro-Palestinian graffiti. A few hours later, at a store eight blocks away, a customer berated employees, accusing the brand of being anti-Israel.

It’s been a tough few weeks for the world’s largest coffee company. At a time when it hoped to be spreading holiday cheer and peppermint mochas, it’s juggling boycotts over the war in the Middle East and a unionization effort at home.

Gabrielle Blake, a student at Kent State University in Ohio, said it's been tough to get her caffeine fix without stopping at one of the Starbucks stores on campus. But she's been boycotting the company since October, when it sued Workers United — the union organizing its employees — because the union had posted a pro-Palestinian message on social media.

Starbucks wanted to stop the union from using its name and logo, saying the company had no official stance on the war and the union’s post might confuse customers. But many boycotters, like Blake, thought Starbucks should offer more support to the people of Gaza.

“I understand on a corporate level why they wanted to mitigate that damage, but on the humanity level, it's horrible,” she said. “I personally try to consume and do things in a way that I’m not disregarding other people’s pain when I’m purchasing something.”

In an open letter to employees Tuesday, Starbucks CEO Laxman Narasimhan decried the vandalism of stores and escalating protests in the U.S. and abroad.

“While I am grateful for so much, I am concerned about the state of the world we live in. There are conflicts in many parts. It has unleashed violence against the innocent, hate and weaponized speech and